Darkness pressed in like viscous ink, smothering every sound but the rasp of Karrion's ragged breathing and the metallic scrape of shield against rock. He'd slammed together the shattered wreck of his shield to bar the narrow cleft behind them, buying precious minutes—but only minutes.
Raine sagged against the ice-cold wall, each breath a stab of agony in his chest. His bones felt plunged into ice, yet his blood seared like molten metal. Across his arms and throat, black filigree veins writhed beneath his skin, siphoning off his strength. The backlash from his last desperate star–ward had been fiercer than ever—Gregory's holy beam had unlocked a deeper, darker corruption within him.
"Hold fast, boy!" Karrion's gravelly voice echoed in the gloom, laced with fatigue. He knelt beside Raine and pressed trembling fingers to his pulse. "By the beard of my fathers, you burn like iron in the forge and freeze like a corpse in an ice tomb." Sweat and dust streaked the dwarf's whiskers as he scowled in worry.
In the cave's far corner, Thalia huddled beneath her cloak, ashen and trembling. The strain of channeling shadows for their escape had nearly spent her. She raised hollow eyes to Raine. "How… is he?" she whispered, voice barely more than wind through reeds.
Karrion gave a humorless snort. "Starfall's battered ugly. Hit by consecrated steel, then forced to unleash that blasted star-magic." He inhaled sharply. "If he doesn't succumb to his power, the Church zealots will catch up first."
Raine tried to speak but coughed up blood. Life dripped away with every heartbeat—those living black veins were more than marks; they were hungry tendrils pulling him toward death. He closed his eyes for a moment, then forced them open. He needed… that blade.
"Sword…" he rasped, nodding toward Karrion's hip, where the Starflame Blade's wrapped hilt lay.
Understanding flared in the dwarf's eyes. "Aye. No time to lose." Karrion rose on creaking knees, gaze hard as obsidian. "They'll be on us any moment—and the blight creeps closer by the hour." He scanned the rocky chamber until he found it: a natural alcove warmed by subterranean heat. "Here, the earth still holds a spark. We'll forge now or never."
From his pack, he drew a collapsible anvil of steel-grey iron, several rune-carved firebrick slabs, a leather bellows, and the rarest of ores—black metal that shimmered with ghostly starlight and crimson stones that drank in flame. Carefully, he arranged the slabs into a rudimentary furnace against the alcove's back wall.
Karrion's hands moved with ancient precision. He shattered a lump of brimstone firestone, birthing a spark that he nurtured into flame with steady bellows strokes. Each inhalation breathed life into the fire; each exhalation stoked its hungry tongues. Soon, the furnace roared, spitting orange tongues that licked the ores placed within.
"Fire is in a dwarf's blood," Karrion muttered—a prayer, an incantation, a vow. He plucked a glowing hunk of dark ore with iron tongs and laid it on the anvil. Clang! His hammer fell in a measured rhythm, each strike ringing like a heartbeat, forging metal and destiny alike. Sparks danced like dying stars, and Karrion's muscles flexed beneath sweat-darkened mail.
Yet each blow sent shockwaves of power rippling outward, stirring the rancid corruption that clung to the forest's roots. From the cleft outside, a cold wind hissed through rock, threatening to snuff their hearth. Karrion traced a quick rune in ash at his boots; a faint blue barrier shimmered, diverting the chill and muffling foul odors. A clutch of six-legged, multifaceted beetles—spawn of blight—scuttled toward the forge, only to meet a lone, merciless boot.
Below him, Raine's eyes flickered open. Though blurred, he saw the furnace's glow reflected on Thalia's veiled figure. Despite her weakness, dark ripples of shadow emanated from her—an unseen ward that steadied the forge's embers and repelled the worst of the blight's intrusions. Raine's chest tightened. She was sacrificing her last reserves to protect this makeshift workshop.
Karrion's hammer rose and fell, shaping the sword's nascent blade with relentless determination. Yet every pulse of the fire, every thrum of his blows, drew the blight closer—as if the very soul of the forest hated this defiance. The cave walls shivered, black mildew spreading in grotesque patterns that writhed like faces in torment.
Raine tried to stand and lend aid but found his limbs ungovernable. Instead, he reached out feebly toward Thalia. Her shadow-shield flickered under the strain, dark mist pooling at her feet. He recognized the toll it took: each heartbeat was an agony, each breath a plunge toward oblivion.
At last, Karrion's hammer rang out a final, triumphant note. The blade—starmetal forged in fire and fury—glowed with molten potential. Karrion withdrew his tools, wiping soot from his brow. "By Morndin's beard… It's done."
He lifted the crimson-hot sword with reverent care, then froze at Thalia's sudden gasp. Raine's gaze followed hers to the cave floor, where the blight's advance had slowed—thick, creeping sludge halted at the edge of Thalia's shadow. But the ward, too, was faltering; the mist around her flickered and thinned.
Karrion looked from the blade to Thalia's shaking form, understanding at last the true price of this makeshift forge. His voice cracked, raw with guilt. "By my hammer… Thalia, you—"
With great effort, she forced out a blade of shadow that spiraled around the sword, sealing it with her final strength. The cavern sighed as the last of her ward collapsed. Thalia sank to her knees, lips parting in a whispered prayer, spent as a dying ember.
Raine stumbled forward, seizing the hilt. The sword's heat seared through his gloves, a living pulse of hope. He wrapped both hands around it, feeling a star-metal hum in his blood. Karrion caught Thalia as she crumpled, rocking her gently, tears glinting in his beard.
In that moment, their three silhouettes—forge, sword, and sacrifice—stood entwined in the underground gloom. Around them, the blight recoiled, hissing a promise of vengeance. But for now, they held a weapon born of fire, shadow, and the last of Thalia's strength—an ember of defiance against an endless night.
The Starflame Blade was forged. Yet its creation had cost far more than metal and sweat. And in the hush that followed, each knew: the road to salvation would be paved with blood, faith, and the relentless echo of a ravenous darkness.